


trouble coming to your home

by catarinquar



Series: series 01 [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Cancer Arc, Episode: s04e13 Never Again, Episode: s04e14 Memento Mori, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Unresolved Sexual Tension, all fairly vague and not depicted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-17 21:41:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15470688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catarinquar/pseuds/catarinquar
Summary: His desk. His name-plate, his office, his Truth with a capital T. His missing little sister. There is a lot of him here, and Scully wonders for a brief moment what traces she will leave behind._post-never again, pre-memento mori. she’s been afraid he might see her as his sister and now she’s afraid she might be dying.





	1. I.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was written in january and then just... sat there. i don't like it but it is what it is.

“How did you even end up in his apartment?” he asks after what could be hours or minutes, tossing a file he's been pretending to read on the desk behind him. His desk. His name-plate, his office, his Truth with a capital T. His missing little sister. There is a lot of _him_ here, and Scully wonders for a brief moment what traces _she_ will leave behind.

She wants, almost, to ignore him or at least feign ignorance to _that_ part, but finds herself slamming shut the file cabinet she's been aimlessly rifling through. He knows, she knows he knows, and so on; they might as well have this out now; _she_ might as well - what, begin establishing some boundaries. For his sake of course, she catches herself thinking; anything for him. She turns around to meet his uncharacteristically fleeting eyes.

“Since when did my private life become any of your business, Mulder?” she demands, because it's not a question; could never be.

Not that they don't both know the answer; some four years ago, right around when she walked into his motel room and stripped to her underwear, even if he was the one who went down on his knees and confessed his past and perceived sins.

But now he only scoffs and shakes his head, looking down at her from somewhere above crossed arms and hunched shoulders. He makes her feel small, but all the more angry.

“Okay,” she nods and straightens up, crossing her own arms; _do not pass,_  it says, and _two can play this game_ , she thinks. “I met him in the parlor when I was keeping an eye on your Russian comrade. He invited me out for dinner, but I declined,” she says, drawing out the last words and letting her voice dip low. Hasn’t she _just_ reaffirmed that she’s good at these things? Shrugs; takes a few steps closer, “but then my flight got cancelled so we ended up getting a couple of drinks at a rowdy bar,” closer yet, “and then we went back to the tattoo parlor, before we ended up in his apartment,” she finishes, and she is practically standing between his thighs, cocking her head and quirking one eyebrow suggestively - might as well go all out now - “does that satisfy your curiosity?”

“Yeah, no thanks, I get it,” he huffs, but he doesn't push her away or get up from where he is leaning on the desk. She can feel the heat radiating off him. “What I don't get is what the hell made you think hooking up with some stranger was a smart idea,” he says and glares at her.

She leans in so their crossed arms almost touch, “oh, I’m a big girl, I can make decisions about who I fuck.”

He blinks but doesn't budge, all kinds of heat suddenly evident to her in his eyes. “Yeah? ‘Cus that's what it was, you fucked him, huh?”

Well.

He’d slammed her against the wall, trapped her between it and himself and made her come with his hand around her throat and three fingers in her cunt, and then he’d pushed her to her knees and almost come with his cock halfway down her throat. But then - then, then then; when he’d had her spread out on the bed beneath him, she’d flipped them over and taken him into oblivion. And bit him.

“Yes, I _fucked_ him.”

Now he stands up, pushing of the table and forcing her a step backwards - and forcing her to look _up_ at him, which is worse because there's something about controlling your emotions and then the angle you hold your head at -

“No, you know what, fine,” he says, “you're right, that shit is none of my business - hell, I don’t even _care_ \- but I think I've got a right to know -”

“A _right_?” she hears herself exclaiming.

“- to know if my partner is fit to make rational decisions -”

“Rational decisions?” and God, why does she have to sound so _indignated_?

“- yes, _rational decisions_ ,” he cuts through, close to yelling, “when the guys she chooses to _fuck_ beat her up and try to kill her!”

That burns, and more so than the colourful bruises still adorning her face. She wonders what they look like, to him, when she tilts her head further back to meet his eyes.

“Should’ve seen the other guy, then” she fires back, though suddenly without any real vehemence. Angles and emotions. “Except I know you already did.”

And never mind the fact that The Other Guy had been perfectly well behaved - or at least not done anything she didn’t like very, very much - right up until he tried to kill her because his hallucinogenic tattoo told him to.

“He could've killed you,” Mulder repeats, almost speaking in a whisper now, comparatively - _I could've lost you_ , she translates; this is just regular Mulder-speech, she’s a pro at this. _Could’ve_ \- _well, you still can, or maybe you already have_ , she thinks, and figures it doesn't make her feel better either way.

“I think you're just jealous,” she tries. Angles and emotions and degrees. She feels cold; it comes out cold, and mostly inaudible. She tries again, “I think you're just jealous that I didn't come to beg you to fuck me.”

She can see that he doesn't miss the switch, _fuck, get fucked_. Notable difference in - well, in everything. He sinks back against the desk again, arms still tightly locked, and she wonders if maybe he is hiding something in there, behind them. If maybe it would escape if _he_ had to look up. He scoffs again.

“You know full well I didn't like - _that_ ,” he says. Cold, cold, cold.

“That sure as hell wasn't the expression I got,” she retorts drily - yes, better - then shrugs, “I did. Like it.”

She hadn’t liked it at all, really, and she knows - has known for a while - that since he found out about that, he has done nothing but regret it. But she had needed it and it was _something_ ; it was tangible, after Duane Barry and her abduction and Donnie Pfaster and whatever they all did to her; it was affirmation of - her autonomy, whatever - and he had been so, so surprised that he just didn't pay attention to anything that was actually important.

And now he’s suddenly up again, towering above her in no time, “you didn’t fucking _like_ it, Dana, you were punishing yourself,” he says. “You were hurting, and you wanted to be hurt more.” _By me, for some reason_ , he doesn't add, but instead shakes his head almost violently and she _knows_ where this is going. “You know what,” he hisses, “I think this is _exactly_ the same. Something's hurt you and you blame me -” he holds his hands up before she can even think to contradict him, “- _rightfully_ , you blame me, so now you're acting out and -”

“Oh, you shut the hell up!” she spits. It's not even that he might suddenly be too close for comfort, it's that he doesn't get to _do_ this to her; she is not some client in therapy; did not sign up to be psychoanalysed by Spooky Mulder, for _God’s_ sake. “You don’t get to berate me as if I’m some -”

“Who the hell do you want to do it, then? You want big brother Bill to tell -”

“I am _not_ your goddamn lost little _sister_!”

Well, shit.

They stare at each other long enough for her last two or so emotions to escape, whatever they are and whatever they look like - before he disappears through the door in three strides, slamming it behind him. A pencil drops to the floor.

She stands there for a few minutes, waiting for the pencil and all her pieces to pick themselves up. Then she realises that they won’t, and that she can’t; the pencil is poison and the pieces have melted and refrozen in the carpet.

When she leaves, she slams the door herself. Just for good measure.

 

* * *

 

She is in the shower, water so hot that it feels like being stabbed with ice, when she realises.

It's a legitimate worry, no, _fear_ , that she has: that she is his new chance to protect Samantha; to protect someone in Samantha’s place - and he got her back, didn't he? They took her, too, but he got her back.

And now he's going to lose her anyway, and fuck if he doesn't find a way to make _that_ \- her death - about himself, too. Everything, everything, everything is, in some vague way, about him. Eventually.

But also: he didn't have to look up to spill it all out; never has had - and neither does she, apparently: she is looking down when the bleeding starts. Dripping over her lips, running down her chest, tinting the soap bubbles pink. Circling the drain while her life metaphorically swirls along. And so, she is still looking down when she starts crying, salty tears joining the mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> say hi on [tumblr](https://catarinquar.tumblr.com)!


	2. II.

It’s cold when Scully wakes up on her sofa. The windows are open, there are books and medical journals all over the floor and on the coffee table, where a wine-stained glass and an empty bottle also stands. It takes her an embarrassingly long time to even recognise the scene as her own living room, but when she does, she checks the clock and knows: at 2:24 AM the persistent knocking on her door can only be Mulder.

She considers ignoring him, not letting him in, but comes to the same conclusion again: they might as well have it out now, spill their guts and secrets and whatever else. She gets up and tucks her robe tighter around herself as she walks to the door. Checks her nose in the mirror, because that’s something she does now. Is going to do from now on. Opens the door to stare at his chest mostly because it's what’s actually eye-level.

“Hi,” he says. It admittedly looks good, too - his chest, that is - what with his black turtleneck stretched over it. She averts her eyes to first his jean clad legs and then the safer territory of his ruffled hair. Did he sleep? “Uh, did I wake ya?”

“I was on the sofa,” Scully shrugs. “But yes, you woke me, as you are likely to do when you knock on someone's door at half past two,”  she says; not necessarily cold, but at least as cool as her apartment. She steps away from the door and over to close the windows, letting him in without having to actively invite him.

“And here I was, intending to apologise,” he murmurs. He's irritated, she can see in the way he stands, but nervous and sincere, too. And something else creeps over him too as he takes in the mess. It _is_ a rare sight, she’ll give him that: Dr. Dana Scully’s living room in anything but perfect condition. Still, worried is not a good look on him no matter how common she might have made it by now. Is going to make it from now on. Is it presumptuous, to assume he’ll be worried?

It’s a sad thought, in any event. She tries for levity.

“In that case you’re lucky because I still accept apologies until 3 AM,” she says, and stupidly, inexplicably, predictably, already feels better and even anxious to let him know he's been forgiven for at least a few hours, and then she immediately wonders just how much wine was left in the bottle before she emptied it earlier that night, and knows she's not going to let him off that easily after all. She nods her head somewhere in the general direction of the seating arrangement. “Make yourself comfortable - do you want tea?” she asks, already moving towards the kitchen and snatching the incriminating evidence on her way. _She_ wants tea. Maybe with something in it.

He mumbles something that sounds like “thanks” and sits down on her sofa, shyli pushing her blanket a little aside. It's probably still warm. God, why is it so hard to _really_ be angry with him?

She finds mugs, fills the stovetop kettle with water and begins rifling through her tea options, and then - then she feels the now near-familiar trickle at the back of her throat. Two small drops of blood disappear in a cloud-like fashion in the water, and for a second she entertains the absurd thought that it doesn't matter; she'll just use a strong tea and they won't be able to taste a thing. Then the bleeding turns into a steady flow.

She gasps in shock, and then again as the iron-taste fills her mouth. Frantically, she puts - almost drops - the tea kettle in the sink and turns the water on full, banging her hip on the counter. She swears under her breath, dripping blood everywhere and wiping it up with her sleeve. She ends up just smearing it all over the counter instead.

“You okay, Scully?” Mulder asks from the living room.

“Yep! Yeah, uh, I just -” _what just_ , she thinks, _what just_ , “- uh, I cut my finger on a misplaced knife,” she improvises. There, that's reasonably probable, and it doesn’t even come out sounding too nasal. “I just need a band-aid, just a second,” she adds as she cups a hand under her nose and runs almost sideways to the bathroom, just in case he decides to turn around and look at her.

Safe behind the locked bathroom door, she holds a washcloth to her nose and starts filling the tub with cold water before shrugging out of her soiled silk robe. It's a dark blue; if she starts soaking it immediately, it might be salvageable. She can pretend that things like that matter, for a while yet.

It doesn't take long for the bleeding to stop again, luckily. She gently wipes the now half-dried blood from her face and chest, then wraps her perfectly fine right index finger in two extra large band-aids before putting on another robe.

All in all it takes her five minutes before she's back in the kitchen and cleaning up the blood, then grabbing the mugs and the something while foregoing the tea. Mulder quirks an eyebrow at her when she sinks down in the sofa beside him sans tea and tucks her sock-clad feet under the blanket, but doesn't comment. She hands him a mug and pours a generous amount of what turns out to be vodka - not so good with tea anyway - for both of them.

“Alright, now you've got some twenty minutes left to do your apologising,” she says, trying to sound mild.

“Okay. Uh,” he starts lamely, “first of all, you're obviously right that it isn't my business who you go out with when you're technically not working, and I… of course I know that you had no way of knowing that Jerse would turn violent, either, regardless of whether one might… blame that entirely on the hallucinogen or on a, uh - an underlying personal… personality trait…” he trails off, looking at her.

No, she had no way of knowing that Ed Jerse would attack her; that the ergot in his tattoo would make him violent - but she had expected, _hoped_ for rough from the first time she saw him, and what doesn't that say about her?

She registers Mulder staring at her, waiting for her to say something. She doesn't know what and looks away, behind him, down at her hands, and then realises that neither of them have so much as sipped at their vodka. Correcting that mistake, she wordlessly downs her own oversized shot and pours another one, offering the bottle to Mulder. He doesn't take it, and she puts it on the table instead, trying not to feel rejected. It’s a little early to turn into an alcoholic anyway; she’s not even officially sick yet.

“Right,” she finally says. And then nothing more.

Thankfully, he continues.

“Secondly, it _will_ be cramped with two desks, but we can make it work. I could - I can get a slightly smaller one if it really is and then there'll be more space, and, uh…” he seems to realise he has started rambling, and clears his throat. “In any event I want to admit that… I was being a jerk about it, and I have requested nameplates for both the door and any potential future desk, so…” he trails off again, lifts his mug as if he wants to take a drink, but then lowers it again. “I mean. I mean, I am sorry. For being insensitive. But I also need - because I think we did establish, correct me if I'm wrong, but we did establish that the desk… that that's not really what this is about, so if I need to do better, you - Scully, you really need to tell me what's going on,” he finally says.

She chugs back the vodka and meticulously readies the next shot; meticulously so as to avoid thinking about _what's going on_ ; so as to avoid thinking about how to tell him; so as to avoid looking at the patented Worried Mulder and his pouty bottom lip.

“You going to let me drink all alone, G-man?” she asks, then watches him as he watches her. Neither of them say anything; him apparently set on making her talk. She supposes it _is_ her turn.

“Apology accepted, and no, it is indeed not about a desk. It's about _really_ needing you to - understand… that I don't regret any of this. Going out with Ed,getting drinks with him in a seedy bar, getting tattooed, going home with him, having sex -” his eyes flit away at just the word, but damnit, Fox Mulder with all the video tapes that aren't his can listen to this, “- with him. I only regret that it ended the way it did,” she says. _And that it wasn't you_ , she thinks to herself before she can avoid it. If she ever has sex with Mulder again, it can't be like that; rough bordering on painful and for all the wrong reasons. What is she even thinking, _if she ever has - God, no_. Although - “I _liked_ talking with him. It made me realise some things, and I… want to tell you what I told him, sometime,” she finishes.

“Sometime, but not tonight,” he concludes after a few long seconds of silence. She can't figure out if she thinks he sounds disappointed or actually relieved.

“No, not tonight,” she affirms, and before she can stop herself it comes out: “ _am_ I just another Samantha to you?”

God, does it make her sound horrible. Of _course_ she will never replace his sister, that she can even _think_ -

“No,” he says, looking surprised for only a second. “I know I… see her in a lot of - situations. Place her there, probably,” he huffs and she knows he's thinking of Roche, “and I can't help it, and I can't help seeing parts of her in you, either. When they took you, I…” he stops abruptly, and she realises they've never talked about what it was like, for him. She can deduct a fair amount, because _of course_ he _does_ see Samantha in her, and she realises she's subtly but firmly shaking her head _no_. She doesn't want to hear it because it _shouldn't_ be about him. Whether _he_ deducts that, she's not sure, but he asks, “is _that_ what's - what's going on here?”

“Only to a smaller degree,” she has to admit, because after all, everything is, in some vague way, about him eventually; him and his trauma. It's _why_ they're even on the X-files. “It was a… stray thought. One of many. That I had. I'm sorry I - look, you shouldn't have said what you did but neither should I, and, ah… I don't want to talk about it.”

“Oh.”

Indeed.

She immediately feels the panic rise. Tonight she has to tell him something else, doesn't she, something a lot worse, but she can't because she doesn't even know the truth herself yet. She just has violent nosebleeds and a constant headache and the word of mad-man - one of _Mulder’s_ crazy, crazy creatures - to go by, and that doesn't prove anything, does it now. Tomorrow she's going to get an appointment. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. But she already knows the results, has already heard the doom pronounced, and she can't stop the words.

“There's something else I probably ought to tell you, though, but I can't, - what I mean is, I'm not even sure yet - _fuck_ ,” is all she manages before giving up and reaching for the bottle. She never drank the last pouring and while you can drink eyeballed shots from a tea mug you can't very fucking well sit with a _whole_ mug of vodka, can you. There's a lot of things one can't do, actually: “I have to tell you, but I-I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t -”

Mulder takes both the bottle and mug from her when she spills over her shaking hands. He wordlessly wraps her up in himself, in soft cotton and leather and just _Mulder._  God, this is embarrassing, and yet - if shaking and heaving and sobbing is all it takes for him to hug her like this, she will consider self-induced drunken break-downs more often. Once she starts losing her hair and her stomach contents and her weight, she won’t even have to make an effort, she realises, and the thought makes her so sad that she stops breathing altogether until she feels lightheaded and Mulder notices and holds her a little away to stroke her cheek and tell her to breathe.

She does, and when he starts rocking and shushing and stroking her back again, she thinks he would be so, so good with children, but now he can get to take care of the sick and dying instead, and isn’t that just something. Maybe he’ll find someone to have children and a family with, after she’s gone. She’d like to think he’s going to wait, at least; they’re not officially anything at all, as she has so recently demonstrated, but nevertheless she’d like to think he’s going to wait.

Quivering is exhausting, and she falls asleep between two hitching breaths.

 

* * *

 

The January sun is peeking into her living room when she wakes up again. Small dust particles float around in the rays; a testament to her busy schedule of late, while evidence of last night presents itself on her sofa table as a glass of water, a bottle of Advil and a note in Mulder’s handwriting - and an undeniable if manageable headache. 

_Officially your injuries are still preventing you from going to work this week, so get some rest and let me know if you’re up for Chinese tonight._

_\- Mulder_

She’s going to call her doctor first, though. No, she’s going to be sick first, she realises; then she’ll take the pills and _then_ she’ll call her doctor. She’ll see if Mulder can fit in there somewhere after that, as if there’s ever any question about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> say hi on [tumblr](https://catarinquar.tumblr.com)!


	3. III.

Hanging over the toilet bowl she thinks about Mulder’s note. Just _who_ gave her the rest of the week off, him? Or Skinner? Then what did he tell their boss about her emotional instability, and what the hell does it matter if - _when_ \- she herself will be telling him she’s dying and he’ll take her out of the field anyway.

She really had begun to think that that was how she’d die; out in the field, hunting the monsters. Had confined herself to that, to - well, to quick and easy. Honorable. But it might be a comfort to her mother, if nothing else, to have the time to - say goodbye, in the way that she didn’t get to with Scully’s father. In the way she didn’t get to with Melissa.

At least, getting referred to an oncologist at Holy Cross for a next-day appointment isn’t hard; she has nosebleeds and headaches and her blood work after Philadelphia was out of the ordinary and her doctor already knows enough of her generally out of the ordinary medical history.

Calling Mulder turns out to be much, much harder; as if waiting a day more would make him forget her embarrassing behaviour last night. Photographic memory and all, he’ll probably have that horrible sight imprinted on his brain for the rest of his life. But technically, she rationalises, he only said to let him know if she _did_ feel up for Chinese, and she doesn't. No need to feel bad in any case, it’s not like he hasn’t ditched her a million times over.

Still, dying right in front of someone has got to be the biggest ditch. Even if you do it slowly; no, especially if you do it slowly, _here, see me? I’m in the process of leaving you, see? Get used to it_. As if that were possible.

Actually - after throwing up a second time and taking a shower to wash bile out of her hair - actually, what she does feel up for is going for a run, an extra long one. Just to make up for the drinking, she tells herself at first. But it’ll be good - even cathartic, maybe - to clear her head and feel the burning in her lungs. To assert some semblance of control over her own body, and isn’t that why she started? Sometime after Pfaster; after showing up, twice, unannounced at Mulder’s apartment in the middle of the night and leaving not even an hour later; after _that_ , she’d started running. A lot, maybe, but still a lot healthier than running around inside your own head, and easier, too, when it came to it.

But now - in all honesty, now it might just because this is her last chance to officially be a healthy woman with an active lifestyle and a good diet; it doesn't matter how often or how long she runs after tomorrow, because after tomorrow she'll be undeniably terminally ill and slowly but surely dying in any event. Can't run from that.

It’s late in the afternoon before she makes it back, and by then she feels she deserves a bath. All included, except the wine, because then what would the point be. By the time she emerges from the scented bubbles, she feels human enough that she considers, just for a minute, calling Mulder. It’s arguably dinner time, but then Chinese isn't healthy and the running was to make up for the _drinking_ , not -

No, none of that. But the place _is_ dusty and still messy from yesterday; she can’t invite someone over to this, regardless of the permanent state of said someone’s own apartment. Besides which, she’s in a good enough place _right now_ that cleaning just a little won't feel like - nesting her coffin, or something like that.

 _Just a little_ turns into _until it’s spotless_ and three hours later another shower is in order.

Blood, sweat and tears are easily washed away; with the help of scented soaps, formaldehyde and the autopsy bay’s patented stench of death can go away too. Scully has always been surrounded by death, but now it is also inside her, and as a doctor she knows that a cancerous tumor cannot be washed away, no matter how hard one scrubs. God, does she try anyway.

 

* * *

  

“Agent Mulder.”

“Mulder, it’s me,” she says. Sounding like herself, right?

“Hi. Uh. It wasn’t your caller ID, so I thought…” so he thought, what, that he’d messed up the order of the universe by not adhering to their unspoken phone rules?  “Sorry, where are you calling from, Scully?”

“Payphone. I’m at Holy Cross.”

Silence. What is this even, she asks herself, payback time? _How's it feel when_ you _only have five percent of the information, Mulder_?

She can hear him get up, jiggle his keys.

“You alright? Wh-where should I meet you? Scully?”

_I don't know, Mulder, shouldn't we just skip this step and hope for Heaven?_

“I’m okay, I’m, uh…” there; she didn't say _I'm fine_ , and by the small hitch in his breathing he recognises the difference. “There's something I’d like you see,” she says, and she's lying; she'd never, ever want him to see this, but she also never was the one who kept information from the other.

“Where are you, Scully? Which ward?”

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

“Oncology,” she says. Hell, she might as well have said, for all it matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> say hi on [tumblr](https://catarinquar.tumblr.com)!


End file.
